Container terminals that service ships and trains, and store containers for end-user delivery rely on containers being transported in and out of the port via truck traffic. These containers are usually placed on a container chassis to transport the containers to a give destination that usually requires travel roads, or rail if the container and chassis are placed on a rail car for transport inland. When the container arrives at the destination, the container may be delivered without the chassis or moved to a different chassis for various other reasons, such as maintenance to a specific chassis.
Container chassis may have many different owners. Some are privately owned, others may be owned in a “pool” by several terminals in a specific area, and some may be owned by a specific company, such as a transportation company. It is very important for the person or company that is currently using the chassis to track the location of the chassis so the owner can maintain state and government registrations of the chassis and also allocate the chassis to the appropriate container load depending on its location. Since container chassis often travel hundreds or even thousands of miles to a specific destination, tracking chassis can be a very challenging task.
Chassis are typically tracked with an alphanumeric number that is unique to each particular chassis. A typical identifier format is “ABCD 123456” (where ABCD is any unique combination of letters and 123456 is any unique combination of numbers. The identifier may be placed or written on the sides, front, and back of the chassis. Terminals have a means of tracking a chassis as it arrives in the terminal gate, such as by using an Automated Gate System (AGS) to capture digital camera images of the chassis number on the front, sides, and back of the chassis as it travels through the gate. Once the chassis is inside a container terminal or storage area, the chassis is either allocated to a new container or is stored. Finding the chassis can often be very difficult as they are often stored in various arrangements (e.g., horizontal or vertical stacking) to minimize space.
One drawback associated with present chassis storage methods is that there is still a requirement to track and maintain a list of all chassis stored at a site so they can be matched to the right container when the chassis leaves the terminal facility. This is also important for valuation of chassis assets at a specific site and availability for new shipments. Current methods to track the chassis inventory require employees of the terminal site to manually climb in and around these vertically and horizontally stored chassis to record the chassis numbers and the location of the chassis within the terminal. As chassis inventory at a given site can vary greatly depending on the volume of containers and the number of chassis being moved at a given time, this method of recording chassis can be very labor-intensive and time-consuming. Maintaining the chassis inventory list can require teams of people to work full time writing or entering in chassis numbers into an inventory database. Furthermore, such work can be dangerous, as it may often occur in dark areas with extreme wet or cold conditions that can create hazardous and slippery conditions to personnel as they move around the chassis and storage site to record chassis identifier information.
The subject matter discussed in the background section should not be assumed to be prior art merely as a result of its mention in the background section. Similarly, a problem mentioned in the background section or associated with the subject matter of the background section should not be assumed to have been previously recognized in the prior art. The subject matter in the background section merely represents different approaches, which in and of themselves may also be inventions.